


When Trust Becomes a Casualty of War

by DKNC



Series: War's Echoes Never Truly Cease [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-21
Updated: 2014-03-21
Packaged: 2018-01-16 10:43:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1344562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DKNC/pseuds/DKNC
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This sequel to my WWII fic, "Ghosts of War," was written at the request of SomeEnchantedEve in a prompt on tumblr. It takes place immediately following the events of "Ghosts of War" in October of 1947.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Trust Becomes a Casualty of War

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SomeEnchantedEve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeEnchantedEve/gifts).



_October 21, 1947_

Catelyn Stark awoke to the sound of her son’s laughter, and she smiled as she stretched without opening her eyes. Robb was such a happy child in the mornings and awoke each day with smiles and giggles regardless of how he’d gone to bed. As she started to pull herself up to sitting, she realized the space beside her in the bed was empty. Ned must have already heard him and gotten up.

Another peal of toddler laughter came ringing through the house, and this time she was awake enough to realize it was coming from downstairs instead of down the hall. _Ned, you should have gotten me up._ Sighing, she got out of bed and went to fetch her robe. Her husband had been up much too late last night, trapped once more by the demons in his past by whomever had sent that godforsaken letter. Saint Lo. Of all the things, Ned had seen in the war, the battle there must have been one of the worst because he could hardly stand to speak of the place.

She’d done what she could to banish those demons once he’d finally come to bed, and she smiled at the memory of their lovemaking. Her smile grew wider as she thought it was now October 21. Only three days until their anniversary. She hoped he would be pleased by what she had planned for him. Her musings were interrupted by a sharp little kick within her belly, just under her ribcage, and she laughed.

“All right, all right, little one,” she said out loud, rubbing the swell of her abdomen. “We’ll go down and see Daddy and Robb now.”

She found them in the kitchen. Robb was in his high chair, dressed in clothes already, and Ned was diligently trying to get him to eat the last of his oatmeal, although it appeared the boy had lost interest.

She shook her head at the two of them. “You should have gotten me, Ned. You were up far too late last night to be on breakfast duty.”

“I’m all right, Cat. I thought I’d let you sleep.”

“But it’s Saturday!” she protested. “The only day you ever get to sleep in!” She yawned and walked around the table to plant kisses first on the top of Robb’s head and then on the top of Ned’s as he sat there attempting to get Robb to focus on the spoon. “I’m sorry being pregnant makes me so sleepy. You really need to wake me up in the mornings.”

“No,” he said softly. “You looked far too lovely and peaceful to be disturbed.”

Ordinarily she would have smiled at that and possibly made some disparaging remark about her own appearance, but he sounded so serious and even sad that she simply kissed his head again and sat down in the chair beside him. Only then did she notice that he was dressed for the day as well as Robb. “How long have you two been awake, Ned?” she asked him.

“Robb hasn’t been up long.”

“And you?”

“I woke up about an hour ago. Couldn’t go back to sleep and didn’t want to wake you.”

“Ah, Ned. I was hopeful you’d be better today. Do you want to talk about it?”

He looked absolutely stricken then, and her heart broke for him. “You don’t have to, you know. But, I’m here for you, my love. You know that.”

He actually closed his eyes at that and swore under his breath, looking as if he were in some sort of terrible pain. “Ned?” she asked him, alarmed. “Are you all right?”

He opened his eyes after a moment. “No,” he said simply. “I’m not. And I do need to talk with you.”

Robb decided at that moment he was tired of being ignored and snatched the spoon from Ned’s hand. With more force than a two year old should be capable of, he then hurled it against the wall splattering oatmeal across the kitchen.

“God damn it!” Ned shouted, banging a fist on the table.

Robb started wailing at once, and Catelyn rushed to get him from his high chair. She held him against her and bounced up and down making shushing noises as she stared at her husband. Ned sat at the table as if made of ice, his jaw clenched, looking away from them. _Oh God,_ she thought. _This is going to be a bad one._

He hadn’t been this bad in a long time, and she’d actually begun to hope the worst of what she called “War Days” were behind them. “Ned?’ she said softly. “You’re all right, my love. I’m just going to take Robb upstairs and …”

“No.” The word was spoken very softly, and he slowly raised his eyes to meet hers. He looked sadder than she’d seen him look in a long time, but she didn’t see any of the rage which seemed to belong to someone else when it reared its ugly head. “I’m all right, Cat. Leave Robb with me and go up and get dressed.”

“Ned, I …”

“I won’t frighten him, Cat. I promise.” He swallowed hard. “Mrs. Cerwyn is sending her oldest girl over to get him in a little bit.”

“What? Why?” Now Catelyn was thoroughly confused. The Cerwyns were neighbors and friends, but why on earth would they be coming to get Robb on a Saturday morning?

“We need to talk, Cat,” he said quietly. “And I can do this better without Robb here.”

That frightened her. “All right,” she said. “If you’re sure you’re okay, I’ll go get dressed.”

He stood then and came to them, holding out his arms for Robb. The copper-haired boy reached for his father in return, his earlier fright already forgotten, and Catelyn relinquished her son to Ned’s arms. She looked at the two of them for a moment and then went to dress rather hurriedly.

She came back downstairs just in time to bid farewell to her son and Jonella Cerwyn. Robb liked Jonella and went with her easily enough, and she frequently watched Robb when Catelyn needed a sitter.

Catelyn closed the door and returned to the kitchen to find Ned staring at the letter from Saint Lo which now lay on the table.

She sat down across from him. “All right,” she said. “Tell me what this is about, Ned.”

“I don’t know how to start,” he said, shaking his head slowly.

“Why not start at the beginning?” she suggested. Her husband had told her any number of horror stories since his return from the war, and she’d found it was usually best to simply let him start at the beginning and keep talking without questions or interruptions until he got it out, however long it took him.

“I love you,” he said.

She smiled. “I love you, too. But what is it you need to tell me?”

“No, Cat. I love you. I can’t even begin to explain how much I love you, and I need you to know that.” He looked at her with desperation.

“I know that,” she assured him. “I do.”

He put his face in his hands then as he rested his elbows on the table. “God damn me to hell,” he muttered, but then he looked up at her as resolutely as a man going to the gallows. “It happened just outside Saint Lo.”

He was silent a moment, and she gently prodded him. “What happened, my love?”

“There was …there was …a woman there. In the village.”

Catelyn felt cold. She didn’t think she wanted to hear whatever this was. She sat as still and silent as a stone and waited for him to continue.

“I killed her brother.”

“You did what?” she asked, feeling a weight lift from her heart and feeling guilty that she’d felt that weight in the first place. “Ned, it was war. You killed lots of people. And lots of people were trying to kill you.”

“He was a boy. Just a boy. Younger than Ben.”

Catelyn swallowed. “Ned, you are no child killer. Tell me what happened.”

“He was in a house full of German soldiers. He and another little boy. I ordered a tank to raze it to the ground.”

“I’m sure you didn’t know children were in there, Ned.”

“No. But it doesn’t matter. They are still dead by my order. Sometimes I still dream about that dead boy and the way she looked at me when I gave her his toy sword.”

“She …the sister?”

Ned nodded.

“She hated you?”

“I thought she did. I thought she should. But I honestly don’t know how she felt about me, Cat. I still don’t.”

Catelyn started to feel cold again. “What did this woman do to you, Ned?”

“Nothing.” He sighed and looked down at the table. “She worked for the resistance. She was smart—spoke English and German as well as French. Helped us quite a bit. But she always seemed, I don’t know, apart from everything.” As he continued to stare down at the table, Catelyn noticed his hands were shaking. “Then we marched on Saint Lo, and the last of my men from the beach were killed—except Howland. I’ve told you about that.”

“Yes,” she said softly. She’d met Howland Reed. The softspoken amputee had told her that her husband was the finest man he’d ever known, and she’d loved him for it. Reed had told her a great deal about the landing at Omaha Beach and the battle for Saint Lo which had helped her help Ned, but he had never mentioned this dead boy and his sister. She wondered if he’d known about them.

“The city itself was shattered. I can’t begin to describe it. We won. But it didn’t feel like winning. It just felt like killing and dying and destroying and I couldn’t see the end of it. I couldn’t see …anything.”

He sounded so shattered himself then that she found herself getting out of her chair to go to him.

“Don’t …touch me,” he said, and she sat down once more, frightened for him and frightened of what he still had to say.

“They took me back to that village, and everyone was drinking and everything was wrong, and I needed you, and I wanted to be home, and she was there in the barn …and that man was trying to …and I just wanted to protect her, and I sent him away, and then …Oh, god, Cat!”

He was crying now. Actual tears were falling down his cheeks, and Catelyn knew her husband did not cry. He felt sorrow deeply, but he kept it all inside. She’d wished he could cry so many times, but now those tears terrified her. He sat there with his face in his hands, unable to look at her, and she found she couldn’t breathe.

“What did you do, Ned?” she whispered.

“I …I …Oh god, Cat, please forgive me. I am so sorry!”

“Oh my god,” she said, feeling as if the floor had dropped out from underneath her. “You made love to her, didn’t you?”

“No!” He shouted the word and looked up at her, a tortured expression on his face. “No! Don’t call it that! It wasn’t love, whatever it was. I love you! It was …I don’t even know. It was over before I even knew what I was doing and …”

“You did it, though, didn’t you? You had sex with that woman in France! The letter is from her, isn’t it!” Catelyn could hear her voice becoming more shrill and tight as she spoke.

“Yes,” he said. “God damn me, Cat. Yes.”

The tears fell from her eyes then. How could he have done this? He was supposed to love her. She’d been carrying his child then, for God’s sake. She carried his child now! “How could you?” she whispered. “Ned …how could you?”

He shook his head slowly back and forth. “I don’t know. I wanted to tell you …but then I didn’t want to hurt you and …”

“Didn’t want to hurt me?” she said angrily. “You should have thought of that before you pulled your dick out of your pants and stuck in some French whore!”

“She isn’t a whore,” he said softly.

“You’re defending her?” Catelyn screamed at him. “Perhaps you should have stayed there with her then!”

“Cat! No!” He stood up then, but wisely didn’t come toward her. He walked back to the counter and leaned heavily on it for a few moments, and then he turned back toward her. “Catelyn,” he said softly. “What I did was wrong, and I cannot expect you to forgive me when I can’t forgive myself. But, know this. You are everything to me. You. Robb. This new baby. I would die for you, Cat. I love you so much …”

“Oh, yes,” she interrupted acidly, “Because nothing shows love and devotion like fucking other women. Who else have you forgotten to tell me about, Ned? Who did you fuck in Germany? Or England? How many other paramours are going to be sending you letters?”

“No one! There’s no one else, Cat! It was one horrible time. And I regretted it as soon as it happened, and it never happened again. I know that doesn’t make it right, but I swear you are the only woman I have ever loved or will ever love. There will never be anyone else for me.”

Her head was pounding. This was too much. She still felt like she couldn’t breathe. Yet, what could she do? The baby in her belly chose that moment to give her a kick. The man across from her was its father. There was Robb to consider. He needed his father. And if she was honest with herself, she needed him, too. _I need you, Ned. I love you. How could you do this to us?_

Ned came back to the kitchen table and sat down across from her once more without saying a word, and the two of them sat there in silence for some time.

“Burn it,” she said finally.

“What?”

“That letter,” she said. “I don’t want to know what the bitch has to say, and I don’t want you to ever read it again. Burn it, Ned. We’ll pretend it never happened.”

“How can we …”

“I don’t know!” she said desperately. “But I have to try. You’re my husband. We’ll soon have two children. What can I do but try to forget this? Try to forgive you?” She met his eyes without flinching. “I don’t know if I can do this or not, Ned, but I will try. You have to promise me something, though. You will burn that letter, and you will never so much as think of this woman again. Can you do that?”

He didn’t look away. He continued to gaze right into her eyes and said, “No.”

He sounded broken, and she could see the hurt in his eyes, and knew that he honestly hurt for her. But still he said “No.” “Does she mean that much to you?” Catelyn whispered hoarsely, the last bit of her heart breaking into pieces.

“She means nothing to me. I had thought never to hear from her again. But Cat …she had a child.”

Now, the cold which had seeped into Catelyn’s veins as she’d first realized what her husband had done froze solid. “A child,” she repeated, almost without emotion.

“A son.”

“And she says it’s yours.”

Ned nodded. “I never knew,” he said quietly. “Until I got this letter.”

Now, Catelyn became even more angry with this unknown woman in France. How dare she presume to take something that belonged to Robb? To this new child? Ned was their father! “She’s lying!” she insisted vehemently. “I doubt you’re the only soldier she spread her legs for. Her brat could belong to anyone.”

Ned didn’t even respond to her outburst. Slowly, he opened the envelope on the table, pulled something out of it, and pushed it across the table to her.

The boy in the photograph stared up at her, and the pieces of Catelyn’s heart crumbled into dust. It could have been a photo from one of the old albums Rickard Stark had showed her once, back when she had first started dating Brandon. She’d been most interested in Brandon’s childhood pictures, of course, but she had seen plenty of the boy who looked like this. The child in the photo was the very image of her husband. He looked more Ned’s son than Robb ever would.

“He’s my son, Catelyn,” Ned said softly.

Catelyn looked up from the photograph to the man across the table. The man who’d shared her bed and fathered her children. The man she loved with every fiber of her being. He was looking at her with an expression she knew well. He had already accepted this stranger’s child as his son, with all that meant. Ned wouldn’t forget about this bastard in France. He couldn’t.

“He is not mine,” she said coldly.

They looked at each other silently for another few moments, and then she felt she had to get out of the kitchen, out of the house, or she was going to suffocate.

“I’m leaving,” she said as she stood up.

A look of absolute panic appeared on his normally stoic features. “Are you coming back?”

“I don’t know,” she told him, and she felt her insides rip apart with the words. “I don’t know if I can do this, Ned.”

He didn’t shout. He didn’t plead. He simply looked at her and nodded. He looked at her as if he deserved nothing but pain. She’d seen him in similar moods before when the memories of what he’d seen and done in the war came to torment him, but she had never seen it quite so bad. And never had a small, angry, hateful part of her wished him nothing but pain before.

After a moment, he stood up and left the kitchen. He would likely go stand by the window in the parlor that looked out over the small garden. She’d seen him stand there for hours in the past. She couldn’t go to him now, though. She had no comfort to give him. She closed her eyes a moment and then reached for the phone and dialed the one number she could think of.

“Robert? Are you too drunk or hung over to drive this morning? Good. Come over here now. He needs you.”

Having done all that she could find it in herself to do for her husband—the man she had loved and trusted and thought she knew—she left her house, wondering if she’d ever find the strength to return to it. Robb would be all right with the Cerwyns for awhile. She could fetch him later. She sat down behind the wheel of the car intending to drive somewhere—anywhere—to think, but before she could even turn the key, the wave of grief she had been holding back crashed over her, and Catelyn Stark sat in her car and wept as if she would never stop.


End file.
